


a burning torch

by loose_canon



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic, Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: AFTG Reverse Big Bang 2020, Alternate Universe - The Witcher Fusion, Canon-Typical Violence, Deadfromthestart!Nathan, Healer!Renee, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Mage!Neil, Minimal Moriyama Interaction, Witcher!Andrew, Yes our boys are cool and powerful but they are also...so dumb...
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:02:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23307256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loose_canon/pseuds/loose_canon
Summary: Andrew is a Witcher, a mutant both hated and feared by humans. He accepted early on that his lot in life is to hunt and kill the Continent's monsters, a lone warrior against the Conjunction's ugly dregs. Until, that is, Andrew is summoned by Novigrad's crime lords and encounters Neil, a beautiful mage with hands already stained by patricide, now headed for destruction like an earthbound meteor. Hatred for nonhumans swells to a fatal pitch in Novigrad while Neil's pursuers close in. Life as a Witcher is looking a bit more complicated.Knowledge of the Witcher show/saga not needed to read or enjoy this story.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 11
Kudos: 56





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A big thank you to [punchsomeoneforme](archiveofourown.org/users/punchsomeoneforme) for making the lovely art that inspired this story and for helping me dive headfirst into the world of the Witcher (with a 300-page RPG guide, no less!). And thank you also to scrivner_scribbler for betaing and generally being a supportive badass. Big thank you to the mods for your patience, understanding, and organizational prowess.
> 
> And lastly to you, dear reader. I hope you enjoy the story. :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A prologue.

Andrew enters the court. Novigrad’s four most powerful crime bosses lounge in throne-ish chairs, each postured in decadent contempt. The biggest of the four, a huge, hulking man who is definitely part-nonhuman—troll, probably, the hypocrite—curls his lip and then gives Andrew a wink. Andrew refuses to give the man the satisfaction. There’s only one person in the room the Witcher cares to differentiate from grizzled graveir’s guts. 

Andrew doesn’t do regrets. No point. This life was chosen for him, and nothing he does will change it. Nothing can change what Andrew is or how humanity hates him and fears him. Nothing can change his purpose.

Andrew also doesn’t lie to himself, so he admits in the privacy of his mind, even as he moves forward to (once again) have his fate decided for him, that he chose the mage. Andrew chose Neil. 

It began weeks ago in this same room, with these same greedy criminals stooping from their precious pride to ask him for a favor. It was almost as soon as Andrew first entered this exact room, in fact, that Andrew did what Witchers do best. He noticed. And then, unforgivably, Andrew did that which he tries above all to avoid: Andrew let himself want.

Now Neil stands at the big boss’s side, afire in bright red fabric that cunningly amplifies auburn hair. It would be soft to the touch—the fabric, and the hair. Andrew notes the mage’s ice-blue eyes, the jaw clamped and flexed. The angry half-moons left in Neil’s palms. Andrew misses nothing. His humanity was long ago discarded in order to hone these senses of his until their unbearable functioning moves him to action. The first time Andrew entered this room, they moved him to the mage, to Neil.

Neil catches Andrew’s attention and lifts his chin, an infinitesimal movement. It hardly seems a surprise this way, that the famously slippery Butcher should have been caught himself. The trap? A bronze-throated mage with deep scars even Ban Ard’s best scholars couldn’t smooth tracing neck, cheek, and temple.

Two men look at each other for the last time. One, honest, cold and barren as tundra. The other, a liar, a flame spilling over. Strange that Neil should be the one with winter in his gaze, Andrew with molten amber. Andrew doesn’t have to memorize this feeling. It will live in his bones.

There’s nothing left to be said.

Andrew can smell the sweat forming on the backs of the richly clad bosses. He widens his stance. Ahead, to his fate.

“Andrew of Kerack,” a snide voice reads, “also called the White Fox. Witcher and known killer. You stand trial for murder in the first degree as well as conspiracy against the Great Sorcerers of Ban Ard and the esteemed Moriyama family. How do you plead?”

Andrew looks to Neil. The mage’s elegant face twists into a sharp smile.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Witcher and the mage meet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you L for the beta. All mistakes are mine.

Andrew enters the court.

More of a courtyard, really, but the four bosses laze about like kings so it might as well be a throne room to them. They don’t acknowledge him, either, until the big boss, Dijkstra (though he’s apparently going by another name now), flashes Andrew a lazy smile and motions to the man next to him to lean forward. Dijkstra whispers indulgently in his ear. The man he whispers to is beautiful with bright auburn hair and glacier-blue eyes. Andrew lives an ugly life killing ugly things--lots of viscera and gunk. He knows that when you find something beautiful, you savor it. Apparently Dijkstra knows that, too. 

The man Dijkstra is savoring is a mage, judging by the style and cut of his clothes, though they’re a shade less dramatic than the usual magical asshole finery. Dijkstra leaves his meaty hand on the mage’s side for just a moment too long. The mage nods without reacting. Playing politics. One of the reasons Andrew has little to do with mages. And crime bosses. And Dijkstra. And Novigrad. And humans in general.

“Ah, yes. The White Fox.” The smoky voice belongs to the boss furthest right, a stout woman with a delicate sneer and brown hair that seems almost plum in the light.

Dislike crawls into the faces of the bosses as they finally deign to acknowledge the Witcher in their midst. The four of them look like mismatched matryoshka dolls, variously sized, all fussy and proud.

Andrew settles into his waiting stance: legs apart, hands behind his back. It’s best, he finds, to simply let humans get their prattling over with. It’s barely evening. He has all the time in the world.

“Reuven here says you can take care of a little job for us.”

Ah, so that’s the new name.

“Depends.” Andrew speaks for the first time. His voice is flat and emotionless. “What’s the job, _Reuven_?”

Dijkstra-Reuven smiles dopily. “Witcher, such a pleasure to see you again.” He enunciates like he’s got a mouthful of spit, though nothing bubbles up. 

“I’m overflowing with joy.”

Dijkstra-Reuven snorts and leans his big frame forward like he’s about to share some good gossip. 

“Something nasty’s crawled up from the cemetery and started attacking people at night. Live people. Eating them.” Dijsktra-Reuven waggles his eyebrows. “We Four have business in that district that we’d prefer the law didn’t look into. You understand.” 

Andrew tilts his head obligingly. He had forgotten how much this fucker loves to bleat.

“The bodies have already been moved. Didn’t want the kids to see the local gramps’s inner meats and juices. But there was an eyewitness.”

Andrew takes his chance to cut to the chase. “Where can I find this eyewitness?”

“Right here.” It’s the mage. He meets Andrew’s gaze head-on, looking almost bored. 

Dijkstra motions the mage to continue.

“I can take you to the place I saw it, too.”

“Yes, _Josten_ here will show you.” Dijkstra’s gaze is somehow proud, predatory, suspicious, and nervous all at once. He says “Josten” with the same tone Andrew said “Reuven,” but Josten pretends not to notice. “Careful, Witcher.” Dijkstra’s expression is a threat and a warning. “This one’s a bit of a liar, but we heard his magic’s got a sharp bite.”

“Appreciate the warning.”

The other bosses titter as the mage steps forward, jaw grinding, and strides toward Andrew.

Andrew holds out a hand and the mage freezes in place a meter away. “One more thing.”

“Let me guess,” says the short boss from earlier, “coin?”

Andrew continues as if she hadn’t spoken. “Walker said you’d be providing compensation for my service.” 

"Ah, yes, lovely Renee." Dijkstra smiles, and this time there’s nothing dopey about it. “Don’t care to intervene for the sake of the vulnerable peasantry alone, I take it?”

“I’m intervening for the sake of my stomach and my horse.”

“Yes, yes,” Dijkstra waves a massive paw. “Will three hundred crowns satisfy your beast?”

Another of the bosses snorts and whispers an uninventive joke about the sexual appetites of lonely Witchers.

“Three hundred is agreeable," Andrew nods. He's good at this: giving as much deference as the situation calls for, but not a mite more.

Josten only comes unsuspended once Andrew gives him a nod.

Josten and the Witcher exit the abandoned marketplace surrounding the courtyard and slip into the overstuffed Novigrad streets. It’s summer and the air is thick with sweat and humidity and the odor of appetizingly fresh fish and horse dung. Andrew’s leathers cling to his body and he mentally curses the overbearing sun and the force of Fate he doesn’t believe in for sending him here to marinate in the city’s putrid essences.

Andrew and Josten don’t speak as they thread through the cloying crowd. The merchants and pickpockets and thieves and guards and farmers hawking their crops are packed in tight enough that most don’t notice a Witcher in their midst until they’ve already passed. When the muttering and glares do spread through the crowd and surround them, neither Josten nor Andrew break stride. 

“Mutant.”

“Fucking freaks.”

They’re hardly new insults, and fairly mild compared to the all-out riots Andrew’s faced in the past, so he forges ahead, stepping in front of Neil until they’re through the worst of it.

Andrew studies Josten as he lets the mage take the lead once more: auburn hair equal parts red and brown, unusually bright, in need of a cut, but Andrew’s not one to talk. Nut brown complexion. An imperious expression to part the crowd, a defense and offense at once, as if he’s expecting an attack at any moment. Josten is unaware of how striking he is, then, that he might first part the crowds with his strange beauty rather than his scars or the threat of his magic. Josten carries a certain violence in him. Andrew can feel it, can smell it on him. It smells like the air right before a lightning strike, something heady that makes your brain go a little fuzzy, almost like vertigo. Who is this mage and what is he going to do? Or maybe a better question is, what has he already done?

Andrew quits staring just in time to see but not prevent a heavy shoulder slamming into Josten and knocking him off balance, the muscled owner striding away angrily, murmuring about “fucking sorcerer ponces.” Josten is caught off guard and stumbles backward onto Andrew. Andrew is ready for him and takes Josten’s weight easily, not needing a single bracing step back. They linger that way for a shocked half-moment--Andrew bracing Josten’s upper arms in his hands, supporting his body with his own, distantly wondering at how thin Josten is. Isn’t eating well a perk of all the boring politics?--before Andrew gently helps Josten stand.

Josten regains his feet and looks at Andrew for a long moment. Andrew looks back. 

Then Josten sets his disheveled clothes to rights with a frown and mutters “fucking bastard,” and then to Andrew, “Thanks.”

Andrew ignores him and waits for Josten to take the lead. They walk in silence, each more aware than they had been before, meaning Josten is verging on paranoid. Andrew actively tunes into his senses now, taking in the scents and little details, remembering the faces of all they pass, their bearing, if their eyes hold fear or righteous anger. 

“They aren’t like that in Ban Ard. At least not openly.” Josten’s voice is quiet.

“No fancy academy to protect you here. Better get used to it, sorcerer. Anything outside of the entirely human is unwelcome in this city.”

“I am entirely human. And--just call me Neil.” He sounds like a liar.

“Not to them, you aren’t. Not to anyone in the north. Magic is for elves and fae creatures. Humans with magic are...unnatural.”

“More unnatural than a Witcher?” Neil smirks.

“Doesn’t really matter when the mob’s foaming at the mouth. They’ll gladly round up a magic-wielder along with the rest of us mutants and half-beasts when their blood gets boiling, especially if the clergy or the fucking Order are in the mix.”

Neil chews on his bottom lip. Andrew can practically see the wheels turning in the mage’s head. He must have some clue about the magic hunts, then. Dijkstra, or Reuven, hasn’t kept him completely in the dark. 

Andrew’s Witcher senses are drawn to Neil’s mouth, momentarily abandoning their task of surveillance. His lips are full and almost soft-looking--and god _damn_ that is not the point of this outing, Andrew.

He yanks himself back to the task. “And how did someone like you end up working with Reuven?”

“Someone like me?”

“Mages usually stick to royal courts, not to the sides of jealous mob bosses. Don’t you miss your life of luxury?” 

The Four are rich but they’re not big on sharing.

Neil’s face is dark and his voice quiet. “I don’t miss anything. I’d rather sleep in the dirt than go back to the Academy, or be royal asswiper at some fucking court.”

Someone’s bitter. Andrew studies Neil without shame until the mage looks away. They’ve moved into less-populated streets but Neil is still tense with unspent energy. 

“And yet, here you are, doing the bidding of the underworld.” The details begin falling together. Andrew cocks his head. “Criminal or runaway?”

Neil’s expression only flickers for a moment, but his pupils dilate and his breathing speeds up.

“Oh, what a surprise! Both, then.” Andrew gives Neil a false smile, one he saves for special occasions.

Neil’s expression is haughty. “I’m here as a favor to Reuven.”

“He’s right. You are a liar.” 

“Maybe I am. What are you going to do about it, Witcher?”

“Nothing, _Neil Josten_ , as long as you don’t get in my way.”

Neil rolls his eyes but Andrew lets it go.

The road beneath their feet turns more dirt than stone, and their footfalls grow less pronounced. It should be peaceful, walking on the edge of the city, the falling sun giving way to warm summer evening, but Andrew knows what skulks in the shadows in the far-off treeline. He can taste a faint undercurrent of it in the air, the taste of ash and rot. And the man next to Andrew, he too is a threat. Witchers’ magic is basic and their awareness of it more physical than anything else, but Andrew’s internal warning system, built to detect even the slightest danger, blares “threat, threat, threat” every time Andrew looks at Neil.

Dijkstra looks at Neil like he wants him, might even like him a little. It’s the other emotions in Dijkstra’s expression that require Andrew’s consideration. 

“So, Neil. What did we do to make Reuven afraid of us, hm? It must have been something especially heinous.”

Neil sucks in a breath and Andrew doesn’t have to say anything more. He’s hit the nail right on the head.

“What do you care?”

“I don’t.” Andrew shrugs. He doesn’t, just following his instincts. Neil is fascinating, a mystery, even. But Andrew doesn’t care. “Don’t you know Witchers don’t have feelings? We don’t care about anything.”

Neil purposely doesn’t meet Andrew’s eyes, focusing his eyes ahead. They walk in silence for a few minutes. Andrew listens to Neil’s pulse hammer.

“You must see how he looks at you.”

Neil is silent a moment then proclaims, “Almost there.” 

So he didn’t know. Who trained this man in court politics?

They round a corner onto a rundown street dotted with ill-constructed homes. Neil’s pace slows as they pass over a knoll carpeted with dead grasses and arrive at the edge of a small graveyard.

Dusk dribbles at the horizon, and if Andrew didn’t know better, he’d say it feels like a storm, but the clouds are only thin streaks. Still, the atmosphere is uneasy. The street is oddly deserted except for a pair of children scampering behind a nearby house, their shoes and ankles enrobed by dirt. The memory of the old man’s corpse and the creature who created it must be fresh on everyone’s mind. 

“Well? Where did you find it?” Andrew says and motions Neil forward.

Neil picks his way to an open grave. The headstone, though nothing much to begin with, is smashed into three separate pieces. His face creases with apprehension.

“Come on, Josten. We don’t have all night. What happened?”

Neil sighs. “I was...visiting this part of town. Reuven’s orders. It was an hour or two before dawn when I heard moaning, and another sound, like the growl of some kind of animal.” He shrugs. “Normally I’d just start the other way, but it was the smell that made me come closer. The smell of blood. Human blood. I knew if I was smelling it that clearly, then whoever was hurt had lost too much to survive. I had to look.” His smile was razor-sharp, a blade’s edge pointed at himself. “I guess some habits die hard. I don’t know how the old man was still alive. His body was nearly in two separate pieces by that point. And the creature I saw eating him—” Neil shivers. “For a moment, I thought it was human or maybe a very tall, misshapen dwarf. But the way it hunched and hung its arms was wrong. Its head, too, it was too oblong. Then it looked my way and flashed its teeth and I snuck away as quickly as I could.”

“It didn’t follow you?”

“I don’t know. I’m pretty fast.”

“Fast enough to outrun a ghoul?”

Neil shrugs his shoulders. “Maybe.”

Andrew hums and surveys the landscape, the pieces fitting together in his mind. “When it looked at you, did it seem intelligent? Did it recognize what you were?”

Neil runs a hand through his hair and the movement is somehow elegant. In all red against the sunset, he’s a man on fire. 

“There was a moment when I did think it saw me but decided I wasn’t worth it. But I couldn’t be sure. I half-thought I was making the whole thing up until they found the body.”

Andrew mulls over Neil’s story as he wanders to the edge of the graveyard, following the divots in the dirt and dried grass until he spies a likely entrance point into the forest, dark trees spiking up from a dizzying tangle of shadowed roots and foliage. The ghoul’s passageway.

Simple enough. And yet— “How did you know it was human blood?”

Neil goes still, eyes wide like a rabbit the moment it senses the bigger creature waiting to pounce. Then he puts on a mask of easy arrogance. “Practice. I’m a sorcerer.” 

Liar. “Last I checked, Ban Ard doesn’t deal in blood magic.”

“What did you mean, about Reuven being jealous?” Neil asks in a careful voice. It’s a weak attempt to change the subject, but Andrew allows it.

“I said he wants you. You’re not fucking?

Neil nearly steps back into a gravestone. “No.”

“Then you should be careful,” Andrew says. “He wasn’t happy you were leaving his sight today.”

Neil runs a hand down his face, looking tired.

“Why are you here, Neil? Real answer this time.”

Neil rounds on Andrew, his voice close to shouting. “What good is telling you?” There’s desperation in the creases around Neil’s eyes, like he wants Andrew to give him a good enough reason to share his burdens, some shred of hope to hold onto.

Andrew steps closer and pitches his voice low. "I am removed enough from your situation to notice when something else is going on. Tell me this: Why would one of the Big Four take up with a mage no one has heard of in a city that hates magic almost as much as it hates mutants? Either he’s setting you up for the next magic raid or he’s planning on using you for something bigger.”

Frustration and anguish twist Neil’s face. “We should go back.”

He tries to step away, but Andrew grips Neil’s arm. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“It’s nothing to do with you,” Neil grinds out. He tries to shake Andrew off, but Andrew’s hold is iron.

“I’m going to take us to a little corner of the city between here and Reuven’s where I know no one will overhear us, and you’re going to tell me what’s going on.”

Neil closes his eyes and suddenly Andrew’s hand is burning with cold. 

“Fuck!” Andrew lets go of Neil and surveys his stinging palm. The skin is bright red. “Did you freeze my hand?”

“Leave. Me. Alone.” Neil’s face is ice.

So fucking stubborn. 

“Fine,” Andrew says, “but don’t come crying to me when _Reuven_ betrays you to the magic hunters.”

And good riddance when he does.

Neil’s expression is fierce. “I won’t.”

#

They find Dijkstra-Reuven eating at a generously laid table supporting at least three different wines. Neil slips into the seat next to him like it’s a given. The huge man watches him hungrily. Satisfied with his mage’s return, Dijkstra motions to Andrew, “Sit. Dine with us.”

“Can’t. I’ll be preparing for tonight’s hunt.”

“That’s the White Fox I know and pay generously,” Dijkstra says with a laugh that shakes the table. “Already on the case.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow morning for the coin.”

“With the body,” Dijkstra points a finger in Andrew’s direction.

“Sure. With the body.”

Andrew takes a last look at Neil before he leaves Dijkstra’s place. The mage is eyeing him warily out of the corner of his eye and lifts an eyebrow when he notices Andrew’s gaze. Andrew doesn’t react, simply looks a moment more then walks away. He can’t shake the feeling that he’s missed something, some piece of information that would make Neil make sense. 

This isn’t like Andrew, to get caught up in the ridiculous lives of the mob bosses and courtiers and sorcerers of the Continent. They’re all the same in the end. Power-hungry. That’s why they are who they are in the first place.

Andrew tries to forget the moment of desperation, when he was sure Neil would yield to him and tell Andrew the truth.

Liars keep the company of their kind, he reminds himself as he returns to his little room in the little inn nearest the Four’s meeting place. It’s an unassuming establishment but comfortable enough. And the clientele aren’t so above Andrew that they openly call for his expulsion. Mostly they give Andrew a wide berth and a few dirty looks.

In his room, Andrew gathers little bottles of glowing liquid and slips them into his leather belt. Andrew thinks about Neil, the mess of Neil’s facade and the secrets the mage won’t tell and the wonder of his face, and Andrew oils his swords, first the steel and then the silver. Then Andrew heads into the humid summer night and slips into the cemetery to wait.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are appreciated and treasured tenderly.  
> i'm on tumblr [@sapphicrenee](sapphicrenee.tumblr.com)
> 
> .


End file.
